


tell the neighbors im not sorry if im breaking walls down

by orphan_account



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Bisexual Betty Cooper, F/M, Gen, I wrote this pre-season 2, anyway, betty and jughead attend pride, coming out fic, hal cooper is an asshole in this but not season 2 levels, i dont go here anymore but i wanted to repost this fic so......... have this i guess, implied asexual! jughead, mentioned canonical self harm, okay actually there is definitely Cooper Family Angst in here, rated T for language but really this could be G-rated t b h, this is pure unadulterated fluff, this is so AU, those glorious hiatus days so young so careless so free we were all sweet summer children, warning for homophobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-30
Updated: 2018-05-30
Packaged: 2019-05-15 21:38:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,891
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14798438
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Betty comes out.  Uma Thurman is involved.





	tell the neighbors im not sorry if im breaking walls down

It starts when they’re watching Pulp Fiction.

Well, okay, maybe it doesn’t start there. Who knows when it starts. _That’s_ a whole nature vs nurture debate Betty does _not_ feel informed enough about to comment on. 

The point is, Betty Cooper is watching Pulp Fiction with her boyfriend, and simultaneously going out of her mind.

Mia Wallace is dancing to Urge Overkill, her hips swaying as she strokes her face and sings along carelessly. It’s not particularly seductive, and the scene certainly ends badly for Mia, but Uma Thurman is attractive, and Betty notices. Not in a _“I would like to look like her”_ way. No, Betty wouldn’t like to look like her. Her experience with dark-haired bob-cut wigs has been primarily related to horrible events and parts of herself she’s trying to heal. She no longer needs to adopt an alternate persona to confront her feelings.

So, no, it’s not about that.

Betty steals a glance at Jughead. She knows he hates when people talk during movies. But she’s also nervous, and she talks when she’s nervous. 

In compromise, she sighs heavily.

It’s their third time watching it, and who knows how many times Jughead has seen it. She can’t bring herself to feel guilty for wanting to talk over it, and she also can’t think of a better, more subtle, more ... _casual_ way to bring it up.

“Mia Wallace is really pretty.” She bites her lip, feeling her cheeks redden. Okay, so. Her loud and abrupt tone was certainly less-than-casual. 

_Fuck._

She keeps her eyes trained on the laptop between them, placed precariously on a pile of textbooks in the middle of her bed.

Jughead clears his throat, and shifts slightly beside her. 

“Sure...?” It sounds like a question, and he’s tentatively glancing at her from beneath his lashes.

There’s a frown forming at his brow and, immediately, she realizes her mistake. A girl, calling another girl pretty, in front of her boyfriend – what does that sound like? A test. Some kind of... mind-game.

Clearly thrown by this, considering that sort of thing is so foreign to their relationship, Jughead is being careful and wary and oh, so _confused_. As though if he agrees with her, she would be annoyed. 

The idea makes her want to laugh.

It also motivates her to explain herself, needing to clarify her intent.

“I mean… I think she’s pretty.” She tries again, and before she can over think things, she plunges forward. 

“I think girls are attractive.” Her hands fidget with her comforter in an effort to keep them busy, and she can feel her blush carrying all over her face and neck now.

Slowly, Jughead leans forward to pause the movie, and turns to face her on the bed, crossing his legs and leaning his elbows on his knees. He places a hand on hers, leaning down to try and catch her gaze.

“Betts?”

It’s a question, an urge for her to continue. And, because she trusts him with this, because she knows this won’t change things between them, she does.

“I…” she laces her fingers through his, and squeezes gently, clearing her throat.

“I like girls… in the same way that I also like boys.” The words leave her in a rush, her chest rising and falling rapidly as her breath comes quicker. “Bisexual. I’m bisexual.”

She’d practiced saying it. She’d said it to herself in the mirror. She’d looked at herself, into her eyes in her reflection, and practiced those words.

It was the only way she could voice them now.

Jughead runs a thumb over her knuckles softly, and his mouth quirks to the side in a smile. “Okay.”

“Okay?” She repeats, her voice breathy but her heart rate steadying. 

_Okay_.

He’s leaning forward, pressing his mouth to hers and she meets him with relief and warmth, deepening the kiss for a moment before pulling back.

“I haven’t told anyone else yet.”

He smiles at her, “I’m not going to tell anyone, you know that right?”

She nods, because duh. “Yeah. I know, Juggie.”

He turns back around to lean against the soft pillows, lifting his arm to put around her and stretching out his long legs. She leans into his embrace, resting her head just beneath his jaw, breathing him in.

“This doesn’t change anything. I love you, Juggie. I don’t want anyone else.” She clarifies. Because despite his calm and undeniably accepting response, there’s still that lingering insecurity. That he’ll misunderstand her, or that he’ll make judgments without clarification.

He doesn’t say anything at first, just squeezes her shoulder in recognition and leans in closer.

“I love you too, Betty. And… I don’t want anyone else either.” That he repeats her words back to her, that he offers her reassurance just as she did for him, melts away the lingering anxiety and leaves her feeling nothing other than _warm_. For the first time since she began their conversation – or, really, since she even considered the idea of coming out to him – her mind is quiet, and her heart is steady. She feels safe. 

Clearing his throat, he speaks again, uncertain but reassuring. “Uh… if you, uh. Ever want to talk about it with me, you can.”

She smiles into his neck, placing a kiss to his collarbone where his t-shirt has ridden down, before leaning forward to press play on the movie.

 

***

She’s laughing, and the paint on her face is cracking along her skin. It’s uncomfortable, but she barely notices.

The sun is beating down on the lively streets as she makes her way through the crowd, Jughead’s hand in hers as he trails behind her. There are people everywhere. A marching band is playing in the distance, and there’s a near constant sound of someone blowing on a whistle or beeping a horn, or chanting. 

Finally, they reach their destination – a hotdog stand. Jughead crowds behind her, wrapping his arms around her waist as they join the line.

“You having fun?” He says right in her ear, making her shiver. She nods, turning in his arms to wrap her hands around his neck.

“Yes.” She presses her mouth to his, eyes fluttering closed. There’s an easy smile that hasn’t left her lips since they arrived at the parade, that only gets wider as she breathes him in, content where she is, enjoying the chaos of sound and _joy_ around them.

Even in the sweltering heat, his trademark beanie is planted firmly and stubbornly upon his head. Pinned to the brim, however, is a little flag in blue, purple and pink. 

His show of support to her. 

When Betty had come out to Jughead, they had only been together for a year, and they’d both been 16 with very limited ( _non-existent_ ) experience. Now – now they were freshly minted _adults_ , living together in New York, due to start college in the fall. 

It had, however, been a long and winding road that lead them there.

While Jughead had been utterly supportive in the wake of Betty coming out, her family had been confused, at best. Her mother, so desperately attached to putting people in boxes and never allowing deviation from her perception of them, seemed to think Betty was telling her she was a lesbian, and kept probing as to whether Jughead was _really_ her boyfriend. 

Her father… he had said nothing, and gone to the garage to work on his car for hours. When Betty had tried to bridge the divide by going out to help him, he’d made some vaguely insulting comment about how maybe he should have spent less time working on cars with her.

The implication sliced her somewhere deep, but she had merely given him a tight lipped smile and walked away. Backing down from an argument where she knew she was on morally right side was unusual, for her. But it just… somehow, her internal need to defend herself to him had been completely scratched away.

Not because she felt he was correct, but more that that she didn’t feel she owed him any explanation, nor did she feel a need to prove herself.

Needless to say, their household had been overwhelmingly tense during those final months, and arriving in New York, free from her parents, was like finally being able to breathe again.

Her friends, however, had been her safe haven.

Veronica had taken it almost as well as Jughead, and with a shrug of her shoulders she’d confidently proclaimed,

"Me too, of course.“ 

That had been quite a shock to Betty, who had somehow convinced herself that she was the only bisexual in Riverdale. And while Betty had never felt anything more for Veronica than friendship, their ill-fated liplock at River Vixen tryouts suddenly had seemed less… mocking, and more like... well, like misguided teenage flirting. 

It had cast Betty’s previous interactions with V in a new light, and though she couldn’t quite understand why, she had only felt more comfortable with her after that. 

Kevin – well, of course, he had thrown her a party (inner circle only), and Archie had hugged her awkwardly and looked at Jughead with a confused quirk to his brow.

As Betty and Jughead’s relationship had progressed, and they started exploring the physical aspects of it, Jughead had confessed something to her, in a weird sort of mirroring of her own coming out. It was something it seemed he had been keeping buried for a very long time.

"The thing is, I…” He had swallowed heavily, holding both her hands in his. “I don’t… I don’t always. Have much interest in, um. Sex.”

He didn’t necessarily want to adopt a particular label for himself, like asexual, rather wanting to remain undefined. If anything, his self-identification an _outsider_ had only grown stronger the more his social life had broadened. Rejecting predefined labels to attach to himself was really just something that clashed entirely with his personality. It was his way of coping, of protecting himself, something Betty knew all too well. 

But, today? Today they were at Pride together, still as in love as they were at 16, but a hell of a lot more sure of themselves.

She remembers feeling self-conscious at age 14, in the girls locker room and wondering why seeing the other girls changing turned her stomach into knots. She remembers opening incognito windows on her laptop, surreptitiously googling while chewing her nails until they bled. She remembers a first kiss, with a new friend, in front of a gym full of girls and thinking _it's a joke, it's nothing but a joke to them_. She remembers clutching at the porcelain of the bathroom sink, palms face down and bleeding from small half moon wounds, as she gazed into her own reflection with a steely resolve and said the word _bisexual_ , out loud, for the first time. She remembers falling in love with a boy, and the fear of his judgment or disapproval. Most fresh in her mind, she remembers the shame her father had attempted to push on her, and for the first time since coming out, finally, _finally_ the righteous anger she'd expected to feel at her parents blatant disappointment rises in her. 

Looking out at the crowded streets, she grasps Jughead’s hand a little tighter. 

This is where she belongs.

And she's so far from sorry about it. 

***

**Author's Note:**

> if this fic is at all familiar to you it is because this is a repost and it was written before season 2 aired, inspired by a prompt at bughead fanfic wishlist which asked for Betty coming out as bisexual to Jughead and them attending Pride together. I pulled my fics from ao3 in order to edit them and then promptly left fandom due to my dislike of season 2. 
> 
> Anyway, here we go again.
> 
> Title from Girls Like Girls by Hayley Kiyoko


End file.
